Yesterday my neighbor was taking down a maple in his front yard. Walked over just as he was dropping the trunk and gave them a hand with the rope to keep the tree off the power line. He wasn’t planning to use the wood to burn so I asked him if I could have it. He said sure, so we carted over about half a cord of maple. He even cut it to size. I like when free wood is only 100 feet away.
Our church denomination business meeting is held each year in Albany, NY, the week after the 4th of July. I took a little side trip and visited the Erie canal. The Erie canal used to end just above downtown Albany on the Hudson River, today it is really the Mohawk River, with an interesting series of dams and locks, with the real canal being much further west. I've read stuff that claims that the basic lock idea still used on almost every canal today, was probably based on the ideas of Leonardo Davinci, personally, I imagine the ideas are even older. The amount of water used to raise this tiny motorboat is staggering. It creates a powerful Suction above the upper gates as all that water rushes in Lock full Heading out
Of course I couldn't go anywhere without paddling, there was a nice ramp next to the lock so I got an hour in on the Mohawk River. Looking back at the lock Got to see one of the Scotia Air guard C-130's flying around. They're the ones with skis on their planes for landing in Antarctica.
this is my original foam kayak , built almost 5 years ago. I stripped off the fabric skin and added all of the latest features and a new one , then recovered the hull, getting ready for our Adirondack trip for the year This guy works across the street from me, I always wonder how this affects the motorcycle handling, but admire his ingenuity, something I would do Painting my boats for the trip, this is one of my cheapskate tricks. I use 12 inch economy rollers cut in half to paint the boats, this roller is two years old, stored in the can of paint it is just as good as the day I put it in Just about done, the new feature is a buddy seat, a smaller cockpit behind the main one, intended for kids, dogs, or gear.
4th of July, the bible school I met my wife at has singing groups that represent the school as a recruitment tool. They were here at the church I pastor for the 4th. I decided to make it an outdoor concert , and we had a great service right on Main street, plenty of people walking or driving by stopped to listen to the gospel. last week of July we went to a church camp meeting in the Adirondacks. Just like the old fashioned camp meetings from history, the focus is on good preaching and the relationship with God, but we also have plenty of fun. I brought most of my fleet for the paddle trip we have for the youth group each year. my wife doesn't drive as fast as I do, so we did the trip in stages, here I'm waiting under the crown point bridge from Vermont to NY. Sunday morning I headed over to lake placid to watch the start of the ironman. Relaunched Sawfish on mirror lake, the lake the town is actually on. Just some of the thousands starting their day with a quick swim... The race starts with two laps in mirror lake, the professional ironman start before the rest, they finished the first lap before many even started the race.
Sawfish was no fun to paddle without any fins on the bottom to keep her going straight so I whipped some up out of plastic cutting board from family dollar. I had a fascinated audience of boys watching me work on sawfish, so I asked them to find rocks for the glueing part of fin installation, they would have brought me enough to crush the boat if I let them. Of course I had to go test the boat, on an Adirondack lake I hadn't paddled before . Rainbow lake Nice little waterfront cabin on the lake, my kind of place!
The day of the youth paddle trip started out with light rain (most of the week was on and off showers) I headed out at 5 am in sawfish to stake out a spot for all of us for lunch. There were a whole bunch of loons calling in the early morning fog, my kind of Adirondack morning! Follensbee pond. Getting everyone launched. We had 7 canoes and 9 kayaks , over 30 people total A bunch of the kids swimming, they like to swamp a boat and then try to climb onto it for fun Adirondack traffic jam
The other youth activity we do each year is a hike, we had another youth group visiting for a few days, and the singing group that was at my church earlier for this, so we had 55 hikers in five teams.This is my team at the base of the mount Arab fire tower. Some of the view from the fire tower. We drove through Tupper lake on the way to the mountain, I with I could have paddled on it, but there are so many lakes in the area that it could take a lifetime to hit them all. Fire tower perspective Lunch at the top of Mt Arab Me and Mrs Rowerwet
The bible school group missed the paddle, so after the hike I took them on their own paddle. This tunnel goes from rainbow lake to Kushaqua lake Saturday we had a baptism service, baptized 15 The funny part was having a few jetskis come through during the service and stop, trying to figure out what in the world was going on.
My wife had to go home Sunday, taking our younger two, our oldest two kids were leaving for youth camp, so I drove home by myself on Monday. Took advantage of the trip to finally paddle the cascade lakes between Keene, N.Y. and Lake Placid . Then I stopped and paddled Lincoln pond, between Elizabethtown and Moriah. The pond is much bigger, but the scenery isn't quite as awesome
Ran into this guy out fishing on Lincoln pond His motor mount is actually an old CRT TV wall mount turned upside down and bolted to the cockpit rim. Every year my sister and her extended family come out to goose rocks beach in Maine for a week. I took the kids up for the day. A whole day with their cousins, and cousin's cousin's Of course I went off and paddled around the islands just off the beach and found a beautiful dory with a hokey engine hung off the side
Had lots of fun snorkelling and doing my first real trip on my nephews SUP, only fell off once. That Saturday the wife and I drove to Newark, NJ for our 19th anniversary. Not the greatest place to stay, but I go here often for work, so we stayed almost for free with all my points. This was our view of EWR airport from the room. Can you find our car in the parking lot? Sunday service at the Brooklyn tabernacle, possibly our favorite part of the trip. 3,300 people , a 270 member choir, totally awesome! Even for someone like me who doesn't like big churches. The tabernacle meets in an old theater with incredible interior details , this is the original entryway We would have stayed for all three services , but had to get the car back from the parking lot, they park you based on the time you give that you will return. Sunday afternoon we ate lunch and enjoyed pallisades park, this is the tiny lighthouse under the George Washington bridge that has a children's book written about it.
